Laboratory Automation In Process Development, London, UK

Many of the techniques used in combinatorial approaches could be used to screen reagents or catalysts or to examine the same reaction under lots of different reaction conditions, allowing fast and automatic optimisation of chemical reactions. The techniques may allow a large number of parameters to be varied and more accurate data for use in process validation will be obtained, particularly if multivariate statistical methods are used in the optimisation. The symposium will examine the current status of automation - both on milligram and multigram/kilogram scale - in chemical development. Although this subject is only in its infancy, it promises to revolutionise the way in which development and optimisation are carried out.